THE SELF-ISOLATION RESIDENCY 4th FEBRUARY 2021: DAY 312

New painting: "To Cast the Glamor."
Oil paint on plywood block, 150 x 150 mm.

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 4th February 2021.
Part 24: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion. 
An Unsettling Appeal: Insearch of the Sublime.

Over the last day or so I’ve returned to considering what the phrases, ‘an unsettling appeal’ and ‘the search for the sublime’, mean to me and perhaps how I can contextualise and refine them with greater finesse. When I have previously discussed ‘the sublime’ I have called it a ‘terrifying beauty’, but that perhaps has more to do with an archaic, poetic use of the word than the ideal which I am considering. I certainly want to convey a sense of awe in reference to my current work but terrifying beauty? Perhaps not. I am however drawn to the other meanings of the word sublime and how perhaps they are relevant to my work and also how they may be considered in the context of the works of other artists: Friedrich, Turner and perhaps Turrell.

There are two basic, although related, definitions of the word sublime. The first is an adjective and this is the ones which is usually considered in relationship to art and particularly painting: “tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated qualities, lofty, grand, exalted, transcendent”. Transcendent, I like that word.

The second is however a transitive verb and is more often used in scientific terms: “to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapour state and to condense back to the solid form. To render finer, to convert something inferior into something of higher worth”.
When I consider the sentence: ‘to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and to condense back to the solid form’, I can’t help but to think of the paintings of Casper David Friedrich and how his mountains become clouds and his clouds become mountains with no hint of transition in between.

To be continued...